Head over to this page and you will see the current ensemble of Drop + The Lord of the Rings officially licensed products in the keyboard space. This includes the keycaps that released first and are still quite popular, to where they often sell out before new batches have to be made ready. In particular, I'd like to draw your attention to the Training Elvish base kit that sells for $130 by itself and is the main cost component of this keyboard. Sure you don't use all the keycaps in the kit, but then again that's the nature of the beast whenever you go for such ventures. Those on ISO would have to get add-ons too and then there are the various other kits/novelties to where people end up paying north of $200 to deck out a keyboard with keycaps that they prefer. If you are a TKL user, for example, then there isn't much different you would be doing, and then consider that this also comes with some spare keycaps as well as a mixed set of novelties, to where the current sale price is almost going to be lower than what those very keycaps would have cost!

In that regard, and also knowing that the LOTR license would not have been inexpensive, I can certainly appreciate wanting to get a full-fledged keyboard out at a more affordable cost and to also get it ready in time to get sales with all the hype being built around the new LOTR show. We are past the first season now and the hype has perhaps died down, but that does not stop this keyboard from being exactly how it was prior. The Drop Entr, for better or worse, is a $90 keyboard that currently sells for $79 with worse stabilizers compared to what you find here, and possibly also switches, depending on your preference. The updated switches and stabs do cost more and thus the sum of the various parts, if purchased separately, once again easily exceeds what this keyboard costs. Surely that makes this keyboard an absolute steal for the asking price?

Perhaps, if you are a fervent fan of Tolkien's work—especially the books and the world building done there. Most readers of this review will see a busy-looking, potentially ugly keyboard with symbols they don't recognize, and scoff at the actual US ANSI legends being relegated to a tiny green font. This is not a keyboard for beginners given the necessity to already be familiar with the keyboard layout and touch typing, and the taller MT3 profile keycaps further compound this mindset until you get used to them and start to appreciate the scooped out top surfaces naturally directing your fingers and supporting them too. Indeed, I've separately covered another set of MT3 keycaps on a low profile keyboard that sounds better to me already. But then we see a keyboard with features that don't necessarily appeal to the enthusiast market either, be it with soldered switches and in a single option at that, not much keyboard dampening, plate-mount stabilizers, and more. This further reduces the market for the keyboard, to where I almost admire Drop for trying this out! Given the increasing LOTR keyboard lineup at Drop including some very cool artisans, I suppose there is enough here to scratch an itch off folks like myself. Drop agreed when green-lighting the project, and shared with me that these LOTR keyboards weren't designed for hardcore enthusiasts. The company also mentioned the keyboard is already quite successful in targeting both new-to-mechanical-keyboard users and enthusiasts alike, and here I have to attribute the use of the LOTR IP first and foremost. Just be aware of the pros and cons here before deciding on what you are looking for in a keyboard and whether this one is for you.